Re: <nettime> Umberto Eco: Not such wicked leaks

[Paolo Ruffino <p.ruffino@gmail.com>]

Eco actually has a point in this article, although he does not fully exploit it.

I believe that he has mostly in mind how WL has been covered by the
Italian press. What emerged was that Berlusconi was a weak and old
man, and more inclined to go at parties with young ladies rather than
accomplishing his duties as a prime minister. Which is basically what
every newspaper has been saying for quite a long time. Eco points out
that embassies nowadays fill out a sort of summary of what they read
on the local news, in order to give an quick impression of the
political situation to their leaders. Eco argues that this situation
is the opposite of what 'should be' or 'used to be'.

He has a point, although 1) WL have said, so far, much more than that,
as it is emerging now, and  2) he does not notice that what he is
critiquing is the version given by the press itself. It would be
interesting to notice how the press has, first of all, looked at what
could confirm their views on the current political situation. More
interesting files emerged and were discussed later. It basically
acknowledged its authority, first, and then discussed what is really
at stake in the released documents.

If it is true that there is more in WL that still has to come out then
it is definitely not so true that 'the informant is lazy', as Eco
suggests in regards to the ambassadors. But it becomes true in regard
to the coverage given by the press.



On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 2:38 PM,  <almost@riseup.net> wrote:
>
>
>> Not such wicked leaks
>> 02 December 2010 LibÃration Paris
>>
>> http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/414871-not-such-wicked-leaks
>>
>> ...
>> But letâs take it one step at a time. First off, the WikiLeaks confirm the
>> fact that every file put together by a secret service (of any nation you
>> like) is exclusively made up of press clippings.
>
> Well, I stopped there.




-- 
paolo ruffino
http://paoloruffino.com
||ïï|||ïïï||ïï|


#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org